No news other than Bolsover apparently stating in the WEN on the day after GG annoucement, that they already had a couple of applicants. Presumably this means they knew well before us that GG had other plans, as i still don't accept that we are a top player or DoR magnet at present, so to have 2 applicants did seem, unusual.

Any chance of persuading Ben Ryan to give us a go? Lancaster might be a long short, Mike Ford may be looking. Look. it's all guesswork, and i'm not suggesting i like the above. Neale Harvey on the other thread seem to suggest some guy from Kobe Steelers.

To be fair A38, the attraction you refer to is the same one that enticed many a supposed 'top drawer' candidate through our door, only to see them crash and burn, during their tenure. That element of the collateral damage may be a deterent for some, as may be the regularity of departures at Sixways on the coaching or DoR front.

Putting us as mediocre is polite. I'd say from where we are currently the only way to move would be upwards, but of course, the spectre of relegation means that the chance of moving downwards is also possible.

I don't have a problem with some bright thing coming in to the role, or someone experienced. Just want the team to to be galvanised enough to have a full season of performances, and not just from Jan or February each year.

As I've said on another thread nobody with any credibility or pedegree will come given they have no idea what the club will look like under whoever the new owners are. Someone with a point to prove who likes bringing through the youngsters might take a punt.

I hope we don't jump in with the first idea that comes to our heads. Let's take our time, meet plenty of potential candidates and then have someone sorted around Xmas time. The job at Worcester remains an attractive one so we should have plenty of candidates from around the globe.

I look upon this appointment as the single most important decision that the club will ever make, get it wrong again and I don't see much future for us in honesty.
I disagree with W_D , as Teme Dream has said we are one of 13/14 AP clubs and it is a fantastic opportunity for a coach to make a name for themselves, whether an up and coming chap or one whose star has waned and needs to re-establish themselves.
Who that can be I have no idea.

Whispering_DeathI really don't see how it's an attractive job, at all. I guess we shall see.

1 of only 12 top flight teams in England
Top class facilities to use – this matters to coaching staff I imagine
A chance to build a club into a top premiership team
A good academy set up with many players getting international honours

However I do accept it would be seen as a rather large challenge the Warriors job

What went wrong ? -
Dressing room forces Keast out - Brain loses important colleague
Dressing room forces Griffiths out _ Ruddock loses important colleague.
Hill appointed when we should have waited and appointed Dean Richards ( who was advising us )
Dean Ryan does the dirty on us.
GG only ever a stop gap once EG was not going to be involved.

CD and the Allen's have poured a fortune into the club, and they have made the decisions with the help of an army of consultants, CEO'S and directors.
The word that keeps springing to my mind is consistency- consistently getting it wrong.

What did you think of Hill, while with us?
What did you think of Ruddock when with us?
What did you think of Ryan when with us?
Gold appeared to be okay until he announced he was moving on, albeit angst was beginning to build due to our poor start. Intensified since he said "we're in a good place" recently.

I know your thoughts on Keast

List may not have been shabby, but i don't recall too much appreciation of them, when they were doing the job. Arguably GG will be the only one to have gone on to something better following a stint at Sixways.

We are a potential death knell to an aspiring coach, and a blot on the CV of an experienced coach given past events.

Is that to do with 'Upstairs'? Possibly dependent on how restrictive they have been with the DoR remit and resource.

For me what is holding us back is lack of direction and vision at board level. I am not sure we have known how to build a successful club.

When Ruddock took over we signed Gear and Latham who were great players but we had no spine of the team and no ability to use our best players well. If we got Gear the ball in space and at pace he could have been a different player.

When Hill took over we in effect closed down our academy and had no production of talent coming through.

The above decisions to me are strange at best, who on earth signed off on them. I feel Worcester have been naive in the past and just gone with whatever the DOR said at the time as gospel. I wonder who on the board or at the club questioned the decisions taken. Going forward I want to see clear leadership and direction from the board at Worcester, I feel we have improved in recent years with this but we still have a long way to go.

Quote: CD and the Allen's have poured a fortune into the club, and they have made the decisions with the help of an army of consultants, CEO'S and directors.
The word that keeps springing to my mind is consistency- consistently getting it wrong.[/quote]

For me, what has been consistently missing is first hand rugby experience (i.e. ex-player)
at board level. Clearly, just pouring money in hasn't worked. Maybe that experience would have convinced them to build a team before facilities, as Exeter have.
Difficult to think of a candidate though - maybe Pat?

It's all very well saying we are one of the best 14 teams in the UK but so what, we have failed as a club for years and right now we are the worst club in the top flight. We have so much baggage, no respect from other teams, media or supporters (rightly so, you have to earn it) and how many DORs and coaches have tried and failed. Not to mention the uncertainty of who will be running the club next year and their ambitions.

I get that it can be seen as a great opportunity but we've been saying that for years. Personally I would see it as a very risky career move at the moment unless I had absolutely no other options on the table.

A week or two ago I facetiously suggested that one day someone would right a book about the last 15 (?) years at Sixways. The problem is of course that no writer would be able to get the real inside story but I doubt that there is one underlying reason why things just haven't worked out as we would all like.

It will be a combination of circumstances, personalities, availability and non-availability of funds and on occasion just luck - good or bad.

But any discussion about Worcester always comes back to Exeter. Why has Exeter been so successful when Worcester hasn't been? Why can't we be more like them?

I think that that is the wrong comparison to make. We should compare ourselves to the other "bottom feeder" clubs of recent seasons: London Irish, London Welsh, Rotherham, Leeds, Bristol, Newcastle. How has Worcester fared against those clubs? Against that yardstick not too bad really. Newcastle seem after many years hard work to be going very much in the right direction and Bristol are frightening everybody with the size of their cheque book but other than that?

A38, the Exeter comparison is obvious and inevitable really, given that they have achieved what we aspire to.
My point really though, was that they concentrated on building a team capable of achieving, rather than worrying too much about their facilities.
I just think we got it backwards.

At risk of opening a whole can of worms a lot of time, energy and in the end cash has been expended in getting a separation between the amateur club and the professional one. Exeter did not have this problem. I am not saying that this is the sole or major cause of our relative lack of progress, but I think it has been a feature, and for some time was a barrier to investment.

Why is it felt necessary to have ex players ( one or more) on the board. Their playing experience is out of date, their view of coaching and players development likely to be based on their own experience which is not current. The risk is of constant "back seat driver" behaviors - not all ex players are old farts but many ex players in many sports get locked in a time warp. What the board need to be able to do is facilitate ( meaning fund) the club; they need to make good appointments in key roles - rugby side and commercial side too; they need to be involved in profile raising and finding sponsors. They are not needed at training, in the changing rooms or opining on their favourite back moves from the old days. Even if having ex players on the board were a good idea ( and Tigers have not find it wholly useful) Pat Sanderson is not likely to be one of them as he was seen as very divisive by many and toxic by some whatever his merits as a player. His brother is developing in to an excellent and articulate coach.

I think is about having the right board balance. Made up of those who have done well in the game (not necessarily players) and those who are commercially minded.

When we look at all those DORs who have come through arguably the failing is of those who employed them. Just like Ritchie and Lancaster. Lancaster gets fired but Ritchie hung on to that role a while longer.

We need a big shake up and for me someone like Richard cockrill would have the mindset to get it done. Not saying it will be him but I feel his attributes would do well at Worcester.

What is Cockerill's contract length in Edinburgh? He's crossed my mind as well. No doubt he'd like a venture back in the Prem and his escape for a couple of years might have given him the space he needed.

Three inter-connected things up in the air at the moment, all potentially destabilising until resolved: ownership, new DOR and imminent signing / re-signing season.

Ideally, new owners would come in very soon with clear ideas of what they want to achieve on the rugby field and the ability to appoint a new DOR who would be able to put that vision into practice. That in turn would open the door to sensible recruitment and retention negotiations.

But two negative thoughts: time in running out for contract negotiations; the emphasis on the sale "prospectus" has been on the non-rugby side (hotel etc)

Equally, the present board give every indication of taking their time.

So, all we can do from our supporter vantage point is to act like Mr Micawber and hope that something turns up!

Good post A38, I have referred to the signing /re-signing issues in the Blair Cowen thread.
I would like to think that we are in no more than a tricky situation, but the truth could be starker than that.
One or two candles to be lit this afternoon I think!

The DOR will want to appoint his own signings not take someone elses on its a bit of a minefield. I guess a DOR would want new owners inplace for security. I woukd suggest until the new investors are in it will be slow going.

I think we all realise for things to happen as you suggest, we should be hearing on Monday, that all is sorted. As Rollo and A38 allude too, players are being re-signed and no doubt Agents are sounding out opportunities for their clients on the QT with possible teams already. We could reasonably have a large number leaving at the end of this year, with little put in place to replace them, unless we are actively doing that work now. With no new DoR in place as far as we all know, not sure we can be doing that.

Not doubting that the club is working at these issues in the background, but not sure it will be sorted soon enough to get all the players we want to keep, in place.

When does FH contract expire? I've a feeling it may be at the end of this season, but i am probably wrong on that point.

ROLLO At risk of opening a whole can of worms a lot of time, energy and in the end cash has been expended in getting a separation between the amateur club and the professional one. Exeter did not have this problem.

Prompted to look up the origin of the expression 'Can of worms' - and it's apparently not from what I had always assumed it to be

Surely Exeter had exactly the same problems as Worcester - but they (and particularly Tony Rowe) have handled it much better?

AFAIK, Exeter are still a Members Club, owning all the shares in Exeter Rugby Ltd via trustees and, although Tony Rowe has funded them to an extent similar to Cecil & Co. at Worcester, that funding has been via bonds rather than 'ownership'.

They have in the past been the subject of a potential hostile takeover via bulk Membership invasion but have put in place complex rules & articles that will prevent that ever happening in future. (Perhaps one of our resident beancounters could expand on the detail?)

To JP's list of DoRs I would add Les Cusworth as the most signifiant loss. He was involved with all levels of the Club at Worcester and I'm sure could have given us the continuity to evolve in a similar way to Exeter. (He even had a 'local' connection in that he did his teacher training at West Midlands College of Education.)

I don't know much about young coaches, and would be tempted to take a punt with one. In my wildest dreams I would hope for Alex Sanderson. If we wanted a grizzled experienced coach, maybe Brian Smith. Question really is who is available and interested?

Surely we need to look no further than the Warriors Rugby Supporters Facebook group? Almost everyone in there claims to have better ideas than all of our current playing and coaching staff. It would be a shame for all that rugby talent to go to waste.

As we already have a pretty high-flying young coach in Sam Vesty I don't think it's likely that the board will want to appoint another younger coach.
Difficult to see the likes of Cockerill or Lancaster moving away from European Cup teams unless they get the old heave-ho. Phil Davies might be ineterested in coming back (again again)

So Squeaky lays all the blame at Lancaster's door given that the RFU made such a fuss and spent so much money on bring Burgess to Union.If Sam hadn't been picked and we had still gone out I bet it would have been Stuart not picking Sam that was to blame.

The RFu tied Lancaster's hands over Sam Burgess and it is woeful of Rob Andrew to lay the blame all at Stuart's door.

To this point I have tended to defend Andrew from the carping of people who had neither his ability nor an understanding of the job he has done at Falcons and then the RFU. I have to say this article - which reads like a badly re-edited version of a longer piece with the language designed to make it more readable in excerpt form - presents him in a very poor light. Wasn't he the one in a position to force Lancaster to address the very issues for which he now blames him? Was he too weak to do that? Was Lancaster so overwhelmed that he could not or would not be helped? Mr Andrew, shame on you

Rob Andrew has a book to sell and as such needs to make bold statements. However, I'd have to agree with all above as he comes out of it looking pretty poor. I think the article just confirms what we've all known about how the RFU works and how they're willing to chuck anyone under the bus and preserve their own backsides.

Very poor form Mr Andrew.

It all reminds me of a few years ago when the RFU realised (or someone told them they had to) change and modernise. So they employed a consultant who came to the conclusion that the problem was the management structure and as such some of the top brass needed to hang their boots up. Well, this just wouldn't do so they fired him, and employed someone else to come up with some better ideas. However, the new consultant also thought that some of the top brass and that some of them needed to go, so they fired him as well.

It’s all extracts from Rob Andrews book, they pick the most attention-grabbing passages and don't put them in any context of how the book is written. I suspect if anyone reads the whole book his critique maybe less focussed on Lancaster and more rounded. Remember the storm when Sir Alex Ferguson has his book promoted in the papers, it died down once people started to read it.

It's the sad face of modern rugby or is it society, that we need to make other look bad to either get newspaper column inches thus sell book or make ourself look good.

I use to respect Andrew but lost it very early in his England role.
The RFU are terrible at promoting the game of rugby to the masses, they really have cocked up the Championship and just seem obsessed by generating short term money with no eye on the longer term.
I know Andrew is not the RFU but he kind of is.
But this article to sell a book just takes the biscuit..... disappointing

How about Ali Hepher from Exeter? Currently their head coach while Rob Baxter moved to DOR. He has done a bit with the Saxons on their tour to SA. Hes young and clearly know how to make a team tick and will get us organised.

AJWarriorsHow about Ali Hepher from Exeter? Currently their head coach while Rob Baxter moved to DOR. He has done a bit with the Saxons on their tour to SA. Hes young and clearly know how to make a team tick and will get us organised.

Surely has eyes set on the top job at Exeter when Baxter gets the international call

Obviously I can't speak for Mr. Hepher but I do believe his mental faculties are intact. Why on earth would he want to accept the poison chalice that Worcester Warriors has become?
Personally I want Worcester Warriors to stay in the Premiership - your facilities are good and your supporters are a great bunch.
I truly hope you can turn your season around. Without Ali Hepher.

Just a farm team from Devon.
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